1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates generally to dosing caps and container caps having dispensing capsules for various ingredients for mixing at the time of use and more particularly to a chambered dispensing capsule having a snap in activation chamber including a drink-through actuator for use on a variety of containers and in conjunction with a variety of ingredients.
2. Description of Related Art
Most if not all liquids, creams, gels and even certain powders and other substances are formulated and created for the longest shelf life and not necessarily for optimal performance and/or usefulness. There are many ingredients and/or combinations of ingredients that have reduced shelf life due to requiring combinations of liquid substances. In most all cases when any ingredients are exposed to one another, including air, deterioration begins and the clock on the limited shelf life starts. Also in most products in any category, “Shelf Life” is the key factor with respect to expiration dates based on the product and category.
Several attempts have been made to design ingredient containing capsules and containers to improve the shelf lives of compositions such as gels, liquids, powders and the like; however, the majority of the available devices rely on a plurality of interconnected parts of the same ingredients which are not always effective in operation of the device
The present invention is designed to be inexpensive to mass produce, fill and seal to be able to deliver an affordable dispensing capsule that attaches to a container in virtually any application and category. This invention allows formulas and new products in any categories to be invented and made for desired end effects and not for what has to be done due to normal packaging and manufacturing and eliminating many unhealthy ingredients that are currently and normally used to produce most products. The present invention, therefore, is useful for packaging ingredients such as enzymes, calcium and magnesium with bio flavinoids, vitamin C, probiotics creatine and many more.
Many dosing caps are manually difficult to activate due to the manual force required to operate. Moreover, most of the dispensing capsules in the prior art comprise molded uni-body rigid designs using a single material of uniform ingredients that increase manufacturing costs and can be somewhat difficult to activate due to the need for a rigid material to engage a container without breaking or disassembling. The use of these rigid materials can render certain dispensing actuators difficult to depress or use because of the single-material design. Accordingly, the present invention solves this problem and is particularly useful because the dosing caps described herein includes a snap in activation chamber that is configured to engage a cap body wherein the cap body and the dosing chamber can comprise different materials in order to improve manufacturing, storing, and utility capabilities of the invention. Further, the present invention provides a container cap having a dispensing capsule that includes having a drink-through spout, improving the convenience and usability of the present invention. These and other improvements described below also provide a substantial improvement over the prior art with respect to shelf life and overall versatility.
It is, therefore, to the effective resolution of the aforementioned problems and shortcomings of the prior art that the present invention is directed. However, in view of the container and dispensing capsules and related devices in existence at the time of the present invention, it was not obvious to those persons of ordinary skill in the pertinent art as to how the identified needs could be fulfilled in an advantageous manner.